When the National Baseball
Hall of Fame’s Veterans Committee announced
its inductees in 2000, the question on everyone’s lips seemed to
be, “Who is Bid McPhee?” A century ago, such a query would
have branded one a baseball neophyte. To not know of the great McPhee
would have been, well, inconceivable.

How things change
in 100 years. Until Cooperstown saw fit to resurrect John Alexander
McPhee,
he had all but faded into the mist of time. The
game nearly passed him by when he played, then pretty much forgot him
during the 20th century. Indeed, only a connoisseur of the most obtuse
and arcane information about the sport would have any intimate knowledge
of the man everyone once knew as “King Bid.”

For the record, Bid
McPhee was the preeminent second baseman of 19th century professional
baseball—which for all practical purposes lasted a scad more than
two decades. Apart from his talents, Bid made a name for himself by way
of his longevity (he ruled the diamond for 18 of those years), his loyalty
(he spent every season save one playing in Cincinnati) and sobriety (he
was a rarity in his era: a player who hit the baseball, but not the bottle).

One hundred
years before eating quiche was considered something real men did not
do, wearing a baseball glove topped that list. To most
people, there was something unnatural about it. Ironically, though
Bid may have
shared this belief at one point in his life, he was as natural
an infielder as had ever played the game. A fluid, graceful defender
who anticipated
well and played the game aggressively, his work at second was not
only unparalleled; in many ways it was quite revolutionary.

Statistics, which
rarely do justice when applied to a top-notch defender, speak volumes
in the case of Bid. He led the league in
double plays
11 times, fielding percentage nine times, putouts eight times,
and assists
and total chances six times. Yes, numbers lie, but not these.
They paint a picture of a second sacker so far ahead of his peers that
his nickname
almost seems to diminish him.

Bid McPhee was born
on November 1, 1859 in Massena, New York, which lies a few miles from
the Canadian border. After the Civil
War,
when Bid was
seven, he moved with his parents to Keithsburg, Illinois, a
town of 1,700 people on the Mississippi River. As a teenager, he befriended
Parke Wilson,
whose father ran the local dry goods store. Bid worked for
the
elder Wilson and played baseball with the son, who was eight
years younger.
At the time, Bid was a catcher, a position that required quick
feet and hands, a powerful arm and, as always, extreme toughness.
It is
no coincidence
that Wilson followed in Bid’s footsteps, becoming a catcher
himself. For seven years, in fact, the two squared off against
each other in the
National League, as Wilson became a regular for the New York
Giants.

Bid’s path to the pros began as so many others did in his part
of the world. The small-town star caught the eye of a big-city club,
and by the summer of 1878, the 18-year-old backstop was a member of the
Northwestern League team in Davenport, Iowa. There he acquitted himself
well, batting .333 in 39 games. Baseball back then was viewed by most
players as a way of having fun and picking up a few dollars during the
summer. Their “real” jobs began in the fall,
after the season ended. The prospects of making it all the
way up to the National League
were remote.

Bid’s chances
of progressing in pro baseball seemed to stall in the summer of 1879,
when the Davenport captain asked him to expand his defensive repertoire
to include the outfield and second base. He made it into just 20 games
and hit a meager .229. After the season, he secured a bookkeeping job
and decided to spend the winter in Davenport.

Bid McPhee photo

The
summer of 1881 found the 21-year-old Bid on the diamond again, for an independent
team playing out of Akron, Ohio. Whatever problems he encountered the year
before he had solved, and was now playing a mean second base. Bid was also
stationed much closer to a major-league city; Cincinnati was just a day’s
journey from Akron. This proved fortuitous when, in mid-November, the Red
Stockings—Cincinnati’s ballclub in the newly formed American
Association—came calling.

The team’s emissary was none other than Charley Jones, who just two
years earlier had been the top offensive player in the N.L. Jones was the
principal loser in a battle that started in the late-1870s between the league’s
owners and players. Arthur Soden, owner of the Boston Red Caps and author
of what came to be known as baseball’s reserve clause, banished Jones
from organized baseball over a minor salary squabble in order to send a message
to the rest of his club. In 1880 and ’81, Jones had scratched out a
living playing for an outlaw team in Portsmouth, Ohio. When the Red Stockings
were resurrected, he was hired to scout and sign the top local talent. Jones
was familiar with Bid’s Akron club. Besides him, there was catcher
Rudy Kemmler and a hard-hitting shortstop named Sam Wise. Jones decided
to ink all three.

At the time, Bid was
working as a bookkeeper again, and by all indications making a handsome
living at it. Initially he rebuffed Jones’s offer
of summer employment. The A.A. was a renegade organization that planned to
compete with the National League by scheduling games on Sundays and selling
liquor in the ballparks. For Bid—who was considered a gentleman throughout
his career—these “innovations” probably weren’t
the reasons for his hesitancy. A more likely source was the potential
for the
new league to go belly-up.

Ultimately, what likely
swung Bid’s attitude was the chance to compete
with and against the best. And to restore the reputation of the great city
of Cincinnati, which had been impugned two seasons earlier when the Reds
had been cast out of the National League for playing on Sundays and making
alcohol available to their patrons. The Red Stockings put Cincy back in the
big leagues, with pitcher Will White, lefthanded third baseman Hick Carpenter
and leftfielder Joe Sommer—all holdovers from the 1880 club. The team
was managed by catcher Pop Snyder, the only legitimate star the American
Association managed to sign in its first year of operation. Interestingly,
Jones was never allowed to play. Despite promises made by the club’s
owners, Justus Thorner and O.P. Caylor, in the end it was decided that
his presence would only antagonize the N.L. and jeopardize its standing
in the
National Association, which still held sway over all of baseball, professional
and amateur.

By all accounts, the A.A.’s inaugural campaign did not lack color.
To give new fans a better understanding of the game, the league
decided its players should wear uniforms color-coordinated by position.
Bid, a second
baseman, opened the year festooned in bright orange and black silk.
There were far worse combinations—indeed, the players referred
to the new uniforms as “clown suits”—but Bid wore the
colors of his position uncomplainingly until the experiment was mercifully
called
off.
The fans, it turns out, were not so dim-witted as the owners thought.
Also, some circus-like confusion on the field helped the league realize
that
the get-ups made the game a lot harder to play.

The ‘82 season was a superb one for Cincinnati, which won the A.A.
pennant by 11 and 1/2 games over the Philadelphia Athletics. Bid’s
rookie year, however, was hardly an unbridled success. At .228, his batting
average was the lowest of any Cincinnati regular. Bid’s sorry
stats were partly a function of the pitching. In the early 1880s,
hurlers threw
from a box 45 feet away from home plate, and could waste seven
deliveries before a batter was awarded first base. Young, anxious
and undisciplined,
Bid had trouble gauging the crafty offerings of aces like Tony
Mullane of the Louisville Eclipse and Sam Weaver of the Athletics.

In the field, Bid
ended up garnering high praise for his work. This after nearly getting
run out of town following the May 2 opener
against
the
Pittsburgh Alleghenys. Bid, no doubt nervous in his debut, made
a handful of bad plays
in a 10-9 loss and was booed loudly by the crowd. But after 80
games (the length of the A.A. season), Bid was the top man at
his position,
leading
all second basemen in fielding percentage, double plays and putouts.

That fall, the pennant-winning
Red Stockings agreed to play two games against the Chicago White Stockings,
pennant winners in the N.L. Both contests were held at the Bank Street
Grounds, where Cincinnati played its home games. The hometown fans viewed
the contests as more than the mere exhibitions they were meant to be.
By the first game, on October 6, the 2,700 on hand viewed the matchup
as nothing less than a battle of good versus evil—conveniently forgetting
that Sunday ball and booze in the ballpark had cast the A.A. in a slightly
differently light.

Bid McPhee photo

For
their part, the White Stockings, led by Cap Anson, were clearly the best
team in all of baseball. Six of the sport’s top 20 players wore Chicago
uniforms, including shortstop King Kelly, the most dynamic star of all. To
defeat the White Stockings would bring respectability back to Cincinnati
baseball, and earn more than a small measure of pride for the American Association,
which was still perceived by cranks as a second-rate organization.

Apparently, Anson
shared this opinion, for he chose to leave Kelly behind to rest up for
Chicago’s subsequent series with the Providence Grays,
who had finished second in the N.L. His confidence was only bolstered when
he learned that Snyder would not be behind the plate, due to a hand injury.
Replacing Cincinnati’s captain was Phil Powers, an anemic hitter
who had not caught starting pitcher White at all during the year.

Playing his number-two
pitcher (a staff of two was standard in those days), Larry Corcoran,
at short, Anson watched in dismay as Cincy blanked
the
White Stockings, 4-0. White, the only 19th century player to wear glasses
on the
field, also happened to be the sport’s most intimidating pitcher.
In the days before hit batsmen were awarded first base, he specialized
in backing
hitters off the plate by drilling them again and again during an at-bat.
Standing in against him was foolishness, as the Chicagoans found on
this day.

White retired the
Chicago hitters with metronomic efficiency, and got big plays from the
defense when he needed them most. In the top of
the fourth
inning, Abner Dalyrimple ripped a single, then tried to steal with
slugger Ned Williamson at the plate. Powers gunned a perfect throw
to Bid, who
tagged the runner out. Williamson tripled moments later, but was
stranded.

In the bottom of the
sixth, Bid, the number-six hitter in the lineup, came to the plate with
two men on and the Red Stockings leading 1-0.
Stepping
into a Fred Goldsmith pitch, he laced a liner to rightfield between
George Gore and Hugh Nicol. By the time Nicol returned the ball
to the infield,
Bid was on third, having broken the game wide open. Goldsmith then
bounced a pitch and Bid motored home for his team’s final
run.

On the morning of Game Two, fans were treated to an epic retelling
of the previous afternoon’s contest by the Cincinnati Enquirer, which likened
the home team’s upset to the Spartans’ victory over Persia at
Thermopylae. The Persians gained their revenge on this day, however, as Anson
sent Corcoran to the mound to face White, who started for the Red Stockings
again. It was a pitcher’s duel decided in the first inning,
when Chicago sent two runners across the plate.

Bid, who would come
to be known as the brainiest of ballplayers, was the victim of a play
never before seen at the Bank Street
Grounds. With one
out and Gore on first, Anson called for a steal. As Bid closed
in on
the bag
to await Powers’s throw, he watched helplessly as the
batter, Williamson, expertly guided the ball through the
very spot he
had just vacated. Rightfielder
Harry Wheeler, presumably angered by this trickery, heaved
the ball wildly to the plate, which allowed Gore to trot
home and
Williamson to reach third
base. Anson trickled a grounder to shortstop and was retired,
but Williamson scored to make it 2-0, which is how the game
ended.

The Chicagoans packed
up and headed east, while the Red Stockings
were officially reprimanded by American Association president
Denny McKnight
for playing
the games without permission. Unofficially, baseball’s powers that
be could not have been more delighted. A season-ending “world championship” had
proved a fine idea.

Little did Bid suspect
that this would be his final appearance in a postseason series. Although
the Red Stockings enjoyed
a fine year
in
1883, the Athletics
and St. Louis Browns also had terrific teams. The Browns
had been a solid club in ’82 with Jumbo McGinnis on the mound. In ’83, they acquired
Tony Mullane from Louisville, giving St. Louis a one-two punch that accounted
for 63 wins. The Athletics were even better, thanks to first baseman Harry
Stovey, who came over from the National League after the woeful Worcester
Ruby Legs folded. Captain Lon Knight’s handling of his pitching staff,
fronted by Bobby Mathews—a 32-year-old outcast from the N.L.—proved
the difference, as Philly edged the Browns by a single game. The Red Stockings,
with a sparkling 61-37 mark, finished five games out of first place. They
had plenty of offense—much of it supplied by Jones, who was back in
baseball’s good graces. But scoring runs when it
counted proved a problem.

Bid, meanwhile, continued
to build on his reputation as a miracle worker in the field, and became
the club’s most popular young player. He began
to show patience as a hitter, too, and even flashed some extra-base power,
with 22 long hits. Bid was quickly moved up into the heart of the order,
where he joined Jones, Hick Carpenter and 6-3 “Long John” Reilly,
who had blossomed into the American Association’s
premier longball hitter at the age of 25.

The 1884 season saw
the Red Stockings shorten their name to the Reds, and Bid continue to
build up his batting resume. His average was .278, which in a year that
pitchers gained some important advantages was considered very respectable.
In the National League, meanwhile, overhand pitching was allowed for the
first time, causing a sharp dip in batting averages and skyrocketing strikeout
totals. In the A.A., pitchers still had to deliver the ball at shoulder
level or below, but they had become quite adept at bending this rule.

Cap Anson, Old Judge
print

Ironically,
Cincinnati’s pennant hopes were dashed by another new pitching regulation.
This one awarded first base to batters hit by a pitched ball (and meant that
White’s days as an intimidator were numbered). Although they stayed
in the hunt for most of the season, the Reds faded down the stretch and watched
as the New York Metropolitans, paced by the hitting of Dave Orr, baserunning
of Candy Nelson, and pitching of Tim Keefe, pulled away from what had been
an exciting five-team race for most of the summer.

In 1885, the American
Association adopted the overhand pitching rule. As hits became harder
to come by, more emphasis was placed on baserunning and
fielding. This elevated Bid to true star status. He was one of those
players who made the routine plays look easy and the tough plays look
routine. Bid
had another good offensive season in ’85, batting .265, but it was
his new keystone partner, Frank Fennelly, who stole the show. An unheralded
sub the previous year, Fennelly surpassed Carpenter, Reilly and Jones as
the Reds’ big run-producer, leading the A.A. with 89 RBIs in 112
games.

Yet despite the team’s “big four,” Cincy
could manage no better than a second-place finish. White could no longer
hold up under
the
strain of 50-plus starts a year, and his overhand deliveries lacked
the zip that younger hurlers now brought to the mound. In desperation,
the
Reds gave
regular work to five starting pitchers, but none could hold a lead
with any consistency. They finished second, a heatlyh 16 games back.
It was
time to
retool.

The first order of
business was to insert Bid at the top of the lineup, a role for which
he seemed ideally suited. Despite low walk totals,
he was
a patient hitte, an important attribute when the American Association
enlarged the boundaries of the pitching box in 1886. The league also
abolished the
rule that stated a pitcher must deliver the ball with both feet on
the ground. Hurlers who liked to take a running start before they
let the
ball go, or
who favored whirling gyrations or other bizarre deliveries, were
given unprecedented latitude to do so. Bid was not easily distracted,
however,
which would help
him lay off bad pitches. In addition, his discipline at the plate
figured to translate into more bases on balls, as the A.A. reduced the
number
of pitchers for a base on balls from seven to six.

What the Reds might
not have expected was that Bid’s development as a batter would pay
off in an another important way. Each year, he had gotten a little stronger
and a little smarter. He was now very good at picking out a pitch he liked
and driving it between two infielders, or dumping it in front of an outfielder
who was playing a few steps too deep. As a leadoff hitter, Bid became
a greater concern for opposing teams, and they often pinched in their
outfielders. Whenever Bid spotted this, he would wait for a pitch in his
wheelhouse and attempt to drive it over their heads.

Will White photo

In
no time, Bid became Cincinnati’s most dangerous hitter. In the ‘86
campaign, with the help of 59 walks and 97 singles, Bid managed to score
a whopping 139 runs, second in the A.A. to Arlie Latham of St. Louis. He
also posted 23 doubles, 12 triples and eight home runs, all of which led
the league. It is worth mentioning that triples and homers in those days
were more or less identical. Invariably, they were produced by balls that
went soaring over the heads of the outfielders. In the spacious parks of
the 1880s, the difference between three bases and four usually came down
to how far the ball rolled and how fast the runner was.

Unfortunately for the Reds, Bid and the aging Jones were about the
extent of the offense in 1886. The addition of Tony Mullane gave
the Reds decent
frontline pitching, but past the man known by all as “The Apollo
of the Box,” the rest of the staff fashioned an ungodly 32-46 record
to send Cincinnati plummeting into the second division.

Bid’s rise to stardom was not well-timed from a financial standpoint.
Prior to the ‘6 season, National League and American Association owners
created a rule limiting player salaries to $2,000. Although this cost-control
measure worked essentially as designed, in the case of the game’s
top players, a group now including Bid, owners regularly skirted their
own rule
to keep their stars happy. In 1887, for instance, Bid signed a contract
for $2,000, but was paid an extra $300 by the club. A handful of players,
including
King Kelly, received more than twice their salary in under-the-table
payments.

As disappointing as
1886 was for the Reds, the ‘87 campaign still held
great promise. Fearing that pitchers were beginning to dominate the game,
the National League and American Association got together on ways to tip
the balance back toward the offense. Pitchers were now allowed just one step
before releasing the ball, and had to keep their back foot at a line 55’ 6” away
from home plate. To this point, the sport’s toughest pitchers were
the ones who took running starts, like Guy Hecker of the Louisville Colonels,
one of the 19th centuries greatest all-around stars. Now they had to use
a wind-up, and could not hide the ball as effectively. In turn, batters knew
exactly where to look to pick up pitches. A second rule dropped the number
of balls required for a walk to five, and increased the number of strikes
a batter was allowed from three to four. A third rule, which limited how
pitchers could deceive baserunners, also was implemented, thus shifting baseball’s
running game into full gear.

These changes actually
favored a team like the Reds, which had veteran hitters, fast and experienced
baserunners, and an exceptional interior
defense led,
of course, by Bid. He and his Cincinnati teammates did indeed have
a very good year in 1887. Lightning-quick Hugh Nicol—an despised enemy back
in the postseason series of 1882—joined the club and ran
wild. He was credited with 138 stolen bases, although a great number
of those came
on
first-to-third dashes, which were counted as steals that year.
Fennelly also tore up the base paths, as did Bid, who did a good
job in the leadoff
spot
again, despite the fact that opponents had gotten wise to his approach
at the plate. Still, he smashed 19 triples to lead the A.A. On
defense, Bid
was invaluable as always. He seemed to have an answer for whatever
baserunning trickery an opponent concocted, in particular the double-steal.
Bid was
adept at cutting in front of the bag, catching the ball in his
throwing hand, and
then whipping a bullet right back to the catcher to nail the man
trying to score from third.

Once again, however,
the Reds came up short. The team that took the greatest advantage of
the new rules was St. Louis, which took
its
third consecutive
American Association pennant. The Browns had a little more speed,
a little more power, and were three pitchers deep to Cincinnati’s two. St. Louis
leftfielder Tip O’Neill had a season for the ages, leading the league
in hits, runs, doubles, triples, home runs, RBIs, batting and slugging. And
19-year-old Silver King, a bench warmer for the National League’s
Kansas City Cowboys in 1886, produced 32 wins.

Cincy’s own 19-year-old pitching “find,” Elmer Smith, won
34 games and had the league’s lowest ERA. But Mullane and Billy Serad’s
combined 41-28 record, though good, could not compare with
the 54-21 mark turned in by the St. Louis tandem of Bob Caruthers
and Dave Foutz. Cincinnati
finished second again, 14 games out.

In 1888 and ’89,
Bid and the Reds had above-average seasons, though nothing to write home
about. The team was treading water, never quite able to assemble a reliable
pitching staff and always missing a key offensive component. After the
‘88 season, manager Gus Schmelz jettisoned Fennelly, ending a record-setting
string of four seasons during which he, Bid, Reilly and Carpenter played
together. The Reds finished fourth both years, and though they did fashion
winning records, they never really contended for the pennant.

Arlie Latham photo

During
this period, Bid assumed his place as undisputed king of all second sackers.
His chief rival for this distinction was Fred Dunlap, who was playing out
the string. Dunlap had started his career with the National League’s
Cleveland Blues in 1880 and led the Union Association in hitting during
its lone year of existence in 1884. He then returned to the N.L. and ended
up
with the Pittsburgh Alleghenys

Though the same age as Bid, Dunlap’s skills had begun to erode in his
late 20s and by the the conclusion of the 1880s he was no longer considered
a great player. In his time, however, “Sure Shot” was most definitely
the National League’s answer to the great McPhee. Although not as
good on fly balls, he was every bit as quick, and could field and throw
with either
hand. Because of his ambidextrous talents, runners on second base rarely
took chances against Dunlap. Although one of the shrewdest and highest
paid stars of his day, he was reportedly illiterate. His contracts typically
bore
an X rather than his written name.

Another second baseman held in high regard during the 1880s was Fred
Pfeffer, who held down that position for Anson’s White Stockings. With the immobile
Anson rarely straying away from the bag at first base, Pfeffer’s territory
was certainly greater than Bid’s. His ability to handle grounders was
also first-rate. Pfeffer was a longtime favorite of Chicago’s German-American
fans. Outside of the Windy City, however, few considered him King Bid’s
equal.

Of note around this
time was that Bid was unusual in a couple of respects. He understood
the importance of playing off the bag at second, which
was not deemed a prudent strategy when he first came to the majors
almost a decade
earlier. Second basemen typically positioned themselves within a couple
of steps of the base, particularly with a runner on first and a righthanded
hitter at the plate. This was the accepted practice even though flashing
across the infield to snatch a throw out of the air and sweep it down
on
the sliding runner just was not a viable option in the pre-glove era.

Bid played a bit further
from the base, which plugged the hole on grounders between second and
first, a favorite target for batters of that era.
Prior to 1887, hitters had been allowed to request pitches in certain
locations,
and almost always called for balls inside or over the middle of the
plate. Assuming a righthander was batting, there was no reason to
venture toward
first base unless he asked for an outside pitch. In that case, everyone
in the ballpark knew he was trying to shoot the ball to rightfield
and infielders
could position themselves accordingly, with the second baseman moving
to his left and the shortstop covering second with a runner on first.
When lefties
came to the plate, second basemen stood roughly where they do today,
and the shortstop stood near second. Interestingly, for several years
after the
called-pitch rule changed, second basemen still hovered around the
bag, even when no runners were on. Bid, Dunlap and Pfeffer, were
among the
first to
see the stupidity of this.

Bid also was aggressive
on balls hit in the air. Infielders were discouraged from venturing back
after pop-ups, for fear of colliding
with outfielders,
who played much shallower than they do today. Often, second basemen
simply ignored fly balls unless they were hit within a few steps
of the infield.
Bid was one of the first to go after anything he could get his
hands on, and he was by all accounts quite good at flagging balls down.
His outstanding
totals for chances and putouts confirm this.

By the 1890 season,
Bid also stood out for the fact that he had opted not to use a fielder’s
glove. Many infielders now sported gloves, which were valued above all
else for cushioning the blow of hard hits. Bid told
a Cincinnati Enquirer reporter that same year that he believed
the use of gloves had gone a bit too far, claiming he had “never
seen the necessity of wearing one” and could not “hold a
thrown ball if there is anything on my hands.”

Prior to the ’90 season, the Reds—along with the Brooklyn Bridegrooms—moved
from the American Association to the National League after a nasty power
struggle over who would become the A.A.’s new president. Meanwhile,
John Ward of the New York Giants had formed a third major league, the Player’s
League, which siphoned off a considerable amount of talent
and fans from the two established circuits. With baseball embroiled
in unprecedented
political and economic upheaval, Bid and his teammates went
about the business of playing
their games, albeit against quite a few unfamiliar faces.

Bid once again batted
leadoff, and led the team with 55 steals, 82 walks and 125 runs, which
ranked fifth in the N.L. His power
numbers
were excellent,
with 16 doubles, three homers and 22 triples, which tied
him for third in the league. The Reds, however, finished in the
middle of the pack.
The Bridegrooms,
winners of the A.A. pennant in 1889, ran off with the National
League title in their first year. The problem for Cincy,
as always, was
not-quite-first-rate pitching, and the lack of a dominant
hitter in the middle of the lineup.
The Reds had no one to match the offensive skills of a Sam
Thompson, Buck
Ewing, Roger Connor or Dave Foutz. John Reilly was good,
but not
great. Besides, he was in his early 30s now, a time when
slugging skills tended
to unravel
quickly.

In 1891, it finally
all came apart for the Reds, who suffered just their second losing season
since Bid came aboard. The
season began
badly from
a business standpoint, as the American Association placed
a new franchise a
few blocks away in Pendelton Park and named it Kelly’s
Killers, after its star, manager and part-owner, King Kelly.
Curiosity alone diverted
thousands of fans away from League Park, where the Reds
struggled to stay out of the
cellar. Even when the rival Cincinnati club folded that
August, the season could not be saved.

Bid and newcomer
Arlie Latham created much havoc at the top of the lineup, reaching base
well over 400 times and stealing more than 100 bases. But the rest of
the hitters struggled to drive in these two table-setters. Bug Holliday,
the team’s centerfielder since 1889, drove in 84 runs to lead the
Reds—a deplorable statistic considering the talents of Bid and Lathan.
Even the mid-season addition of the great Pete Browning did little to
create runs. And although Bid was happy to have Latham in the batting
order, he cringed each time a hard grounder was hit the third baseman’s
way. Unless the ball was hit within a steps of Latham, he rarely mustered
more than a half-hearted attempt to stop it. For decades after, when infielders
waved at hot shots, they were said to have “pulled a Latham.”

Fred Dunlap, Gypsy
Queen print

Cincinnati’s
fortunes shifted somewhat in 1892, after the American Association was disbanded.
In the resulting player-grab, the Reds ended up with some good veterans,
including outfielder Tip O’Neill, pitcher Ice Box Chamberlain and first
baseman Charlie Comiskey. Driving the ball through the right side of the
Cincinnati infield must have been next-to-impossible in ’92. Bid still
had unparalleled range and Comiskey had practically invented playing off
the bag at first base during the previous decade.

Although still proficient
in the field, Comiskey, who signed a three-year deal to manage the Reds,
had nothing left as a hitter. And his interest in
furthering the fortunes of the club often seemed secondary to the feathering
of his own nest. During his stint in Cincinnati, “Commy” learned
the business of baseball from the Reds’ new owner John T. Brush, whose
taste for byzantine politics and financial ruthlessness was admired greatly
by the player-manager. Comiskey also made the acquaintance of a Cincinnati-born
sportswriter named Ban Johnson, who liked to cast himself as Brush’s
mortal enemy. After the A.A. folded, Johnson began laying the groundwork
for what would eventually become the American League. Not coincidentally,
Comiskey would one day become the new league’s most powerful owner.

To generate more excitement
among baseball fans (who in 1892 were watching every penny thanks to
an economic recession), the National League opted
for a split season, with the winners of each half playing for the championship.
The Reds did not figure in either race, although they wound up with
winning records in each half. Two teams on the rise, the Boston Beaneaters
and
Cleveland
Spiders, ended the season in the pennant series, which went to Boston
in a rout. Cleveland’s second baseman, Cupid Childs, had a terrific year,
leading the league in runs scored with 136 and working pitchers for 117 walks.
He was a tough, tricky player in a game that was becoming quite violent,
particularly on the basepaths. Although Childs was hardly considered Bid’s
equal as an all-around player, the Cincy second sacker—who also had
an excellent year at the plate—had to have sensed the shifting
wind. An unfailing gentleman, he must have felt like a dinosaur in
this win-at-all-costs
game.

The 1892 Reds were
a good club with a lousy pitching staff. By the end of the year, Comiskey
had so little faith in his mound corps that
he
was willing
to try anything. On the final day of the season, a mystery man named
Bumpus Jones walked into the clubhouse and claimed he could out-pitch
anyone in
baseball. An amused Comiskey gave Jones a uniform and sent him to
the hill—where
he proceeded to pitch a no-hitter against the Pittsburgh Pirates!
Invited back the next spring, Jones made the club but failed to regain
his touch
and was released after just five starts.

The Reds again finished
in the middle of the pack, winning just a couple of more games than they
lost. Bid led the team in walks and
scored
more than 100 runs for the fifth year in a row. Latham, Holliday
and catcher
Farmer
Vaughn also had good years, but nothing like the seasons enjoyed
by the three hitting stars of the Philadelphia Phillies, Sam Thompson,
Billy
Hamilton
and young Ed Delehanty. Each batted .365 or better, and combined
for
nearly 400 runs and more than 300 RBIs. Aamazingly, the Phillies
finished third.

The problem for Cincinnati
was pitching again. Prior to the season, this area appeared to have been
addressed with the acquisition
of Silver King.
But a rule change moving the pitching distance back to the current
60’ 6”—and
the insistence that a pitcher keep his back foot on the rubber—all
but ruined King’s career. His weird sidearm delivery, thrown
as he moved sideways through the pitching box, was now illegal.
He lasted 15
starts and won just five games.

The Reds bottomed
out in 1894, when the pitching completely fell apart. Cincinnati finished
10th, with a record of 55-75, a shame
for the club’s fans
because the offensive finally began to get on track. Bid, now 34, had one
of his best seasons, with a .304 average and 88 RBIs to go along with his
usual good totals in runs, walks and stolen bases. William “Dummy” Hoy,
a deaf mute, came over from the Washington Senators, took over
in centerfield and did a great job. Bug Holliday came into
his own after shifting to leftfield,
batting .372 and finishing among the league leaders with 13
home runs. Latham also had a great year, batting over .300,
stealing 59 bases and
scoring 129
runs.

Upstate in Cleveland,
the 27-year-old Childs hit.353 with 143 runs scored. A lefty who batted
leadoff for the Spiders, he and Bid likely had some intriguing encounters
during the 11 games the teams played against each other that year.

Charles Comiskey, 1961
Fleer

The
Reds returned to mediocrity in 1895. Comiskey, who had had one foot out
the door in ‘94, was replaced by Buck Ewing, who took over as the team’s
manager and first baseman. Ewing, a mythic figure in 19th century baseball,
did a better job than Commy on the bench and at the plate, proving to be
the major difference between 55 wins and the 66 Cincy garnered in ’95.
Ewing’s star turn was made even more delicious by the fact that he
was acquired from the hated Spiders, who went on to lose the pennant by
a scant three games.

Bid also had the last laugh in the battle of the second basemen. Childs,
labeled as a thug, was one of the prime targets of a crackdown on dirty
play ordered by the National League. He responded with a .288 average,
96 runs
and just 22 extra-base hits to Bid’s .299, 107 runs and 37 long hits.

More important, the
Reds seemed to have the makings of a decent team heading into the 1896
season. They could field a solid man at every position, and their pitching
looked like it was coming around. Frank Dwyer, who had been with the team
since the early 1890s, had coped with the change in pitching distance
and seemed to be thriving. Frank Forman, a tall lefty, appeared to be
regaining the form that had made him one of the better hurlers in the
American Association. When veteran Red Ehret joined the team over the
winter, Reds’ fans were actually feeling good about the team’s
chances. No, these guys weren’t Kid Nichols and Cy Young, but they
could keep the team in a tight game

The ‘96 season
opened with one of the strangest sights anyone in Cincinnati could remember.
Bid was wearing a thinly padded glove. A finger injury suffered in spring
practice had necessitated its use, and he wore it throughout the season.
Not surprisingly, Bid turned in a season that, statistically speaking,
was nothing short of miraculous. His fielding average in 1896 (.982) eclipsed
the old mark by 16 points, establishing a record that stood until 1925,
when equipment and field conditions had undergone revolutionary improvements.
No longer hitting at the top of the lineup (outfielders Eddie Burke and
Dusty Miller had assumed the 1-2 roles) Bid became more of a role player
on offense. He batted .305 and knocked in 87 runs, which ranked second
on the club.

The Reds were strong
up the middle, with Farmer behind the plate, the agile Germany Smith at
shortstop teaming with Bid, and the fleet-footed Hoy in center. With Ewing
calling the shots, the Reds played the same brand of smart, aggressive
baseball in which the league’s top club, the Baltimore Orioles,
specialized. Never before had a team averaged less than two errors a game;
this year the Reds beat that record easily. Defense, pitching and, for
once, timely hitting, propelled the Reds past Baltimore and Cleveland
into first place early in the season’s second half. With a 61-29
record, the team was two games ahead of the Orioles at the end of July.

Sadly for Bid
and his mates, that was as good as it got. As so often happens in August,
old teams slow down, and this is what
happened
to the Reds. The
inning-ending strikeout pitch became a single, the diving grab
became a seeing-eye hit, and the booming triple became just another
long
out. Cincy finished
out the year with just 16 more victories and slipped quietly
into third place by two and a half games. Once again, Bid was denied
a spot in
the postseason.
Instead, the detested Spiders finished second, earning a berth
in the Temple Cup series against the pennant-winning Orioles.

The hand injury of
1896 was the first signal that age was beginning to creep up on King
Bid. An ankle injury in 1897, which threatened
to end
his career,
was the next. Bid was unable to play for nearly three months.
When rumors began circulating that he might retire, Cincinnati
fans
took up a collection
and raised $3,500—not an insignificant amount in those
days.

Bid returned to full-time
duty in 1898, and the Reds, who had
finished fourth without him the year before, were right in
the thick of
the pennant race.
Pitching was now the team’s strength. Ted Breitenstein, a terrific
young pitcher acquired from the Browns, produced 20 wins and twirled a no-hitter
against the Pirates in April. Frank Dwyer turned in a nice season as a part-time
starter, as did young lefty Bill Damman in only his second year with the
team—the pair combined for 32 victories.

The big boost, however,
came from Pink Hawley, a noted workhorse earlier in the decade with the
Browns and Pirates. Picked up before the season, Hawley surprised everyone
with a 27-11 record. Bill Hill, a 28-game loser for Louisville in 1896,
chipped in 13 wins to round out the most successful five-man starting
rotation in history to that point. Manager Ewing, who as a former catcher
knew a thing or two about handling pitchers, was hailed for going against
common wisdom (which dictated a three-man rotation) and living to tell
the tale.

Buck Ewing, Mayo Cut
Plug

The
Cincinnati offense had just enough punch to get the job done. Leftfielder
Elmer Smith, an often overlooked star of the 1890s, came over from the
Pirates to lead the club with a .342 average, while the RBIs came from
the top of
the order, in the persons of Miller and the team’s new shortstop, Tommy
Corcoran, late of the Bridegrooms. Bid, who by this time was taking an occasional
game off, finished second on the club in walks and stolen bases. He and Corcoran
formed the game’s preeminent double-play combo.

The Reds surged into first place on May 11 and clung to a slim lead
throughout June and July. On August 16, the Beaneaters ended Cincy’s
stay at the top of the standings. Boston manager Frank Selee had
done a brilliant
job
retooling the club that had dominated the league in the early 1890s,
and he now had a powerhouse offense. Behind the usual superb pitching
of veteran
Kid Nichols and the shockingly good year turned in by rookie Vic Willis,
the Beaneaters came together and put death grip on the pennant. A slot
in the Temple Cup disappeared for the Reds a few weeks later, when the
Orioles
solved their pitching problems and snuck into second place.

Bid’s final
season as a player was 1899. The team was very competitive, but there
was no pennant race this time, as Brooklyn, Boston and Philadelphia
each topped the 90-win mark. Perhaps that is what ultimately influenced
King Bid to finally retire. At 38 he could still play the game, but
that elusive
pennant seemed to be getting farther and farther away. He knew how
to handle his money from his days as a bookkeeper, and had socked away
enough to
get by on for a while. That last campaign was not a bad one for Bid,
who appeared
in 111 games and hit a respectable .279, fourth among the Cincinnati
regulars.

After the ‘99
season, Buck Ewing headed back for New York, and Bob Allen was hired
to run the team. Bid remained in Cincinnati and watched
as Allen, a former shortstop with the Phillies, ran the Reds into
the ground. He could see the club was getting a bit long in the tooth,
but there were
some talented youngsters on the roster, too. When Bid was approached
to take
over the managerial reins in 1901, he agreed to give it a shot.

Bid was looking forward
to trying his hand at managing. Unfortunately, one of the kids he had
so admired the summer before had been dealt
to the Giants.
His name was Christy Mathewson, a college kid who had lost all
three of his decisions for Cincinnati in 1900. In return, the Reds received
Amos
Rusie,
a perennial 20-game winner for the Giants who had held out in a
salary
dispute and missed the entire ‘99 and 1’00 seasons.
Bid had once cracked three triples in one game off Rusie.

To Bid’s relief, he still had Noodles Hahn, the 22-year-old fireballer
who had come up with the Reds in Bid’s final season as
a player and led the National League in strikeouts two years
running. Also in the lineup
was a talented third baseman named Harry Steinfeldt, and 21-year-old
Sam Crawford, who could already hit a pitched ball farther than
anyone in the
league.

Although Hahn and
Crawford blossomed into superstars during the 1901 season, the rest of
Bid’s charges fell far short of his expectations. Except
for Crawford’s league-high 16 homers and veteran Jake Beckley’s
177 hits, the offense was horrible. The team’s pitching, even with
Hahn’s great year, was still the worst in the National
League. While Mathewson won 20 games for the lowly Giants,
Rusie pitched in three games
before being released. The Reds finished dead last for the
first time since Bid joined the team 19 years earlier.

Undaunted, King Bid
agreed to manage the club in 1902. Once again, Hahn and Crawford were
great, Beckley was solid, and
no one else
did a thing.
In a
blink, the Reds were 10 games under .500 and going nowhere
fast. For Bid, worse than the losing were the boos—something
he had rarely heard from the fans as a player. When the club’s
League Park burned after the 1901 season, a new facility
was erected and dubbed “Palace of the Fans.” It
was indeed fan-friendly, right down to the special field-level
seating down the first- and third-base lines, where beer
was sold 12 glasses for
a dollar
and a thin wire barrier was all that stood between Bid and
his drunken critics.

Toward the end of
June, rumors began flying that American League president Ban Johnson had
double-crossed John McGraw of the Orioles, to whom he had promised a piece
of the New York franchise when the Baltimore team relocated there in 1903.
McGraw was busy plotting his revenge, which involved gutting the Baltimore
team. One of his accomplices was Reds owner John T. Brush, whose dislike
for Johnson dated back a decade. Part of the scheme involved moving Baltimore’s
30-year-old slugger, Joe Kelley, to Cincinnati. There he would reportedly
be paid to both play and manage the team, despite having no experience
in the latter. Cy Seymour, another top player, was also rumored to be
headed to the Reds. When Bid caught wind of this plot, he quit. This was
not the kind of baseball he wanted to be associated with. Brush sold the
team shortly after the Kelley fiasco came to light. Brush ended up buying
the Giants, and he and McGraw built a great team.

Tommy Corcoran, 1904
Fan Craze

Bid
remained in Cincinnati for several more years, tending to his various business
affairs and working as a talent scout for the Reds. In 1909, he packed
his bags, said goodbye to baseball and moved to Ocean Beach, in Southern
California.
He resurfaced in 1939, when the Reds won the National League pennant, granting
interviews to local newspapers as well as The Sporting News. Otherwise,
he remained in quiet retirement until his death, in 1943, in the City
of San
Diego.

By agreement of the
Veterans Committee, Bid McPhee was the last 19th century player admitted
to the Hall of Fame. There may be others from his era worthy
of the honor, but none more deserving. Bid embodied all that was good
about baseball’s first century and almost nothing that was bad. Brave, honest,
imaginative and immensely talented, he is one of the few Hall of Famers who
can honestly be called a “pioneer.”

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